I turn the corner and spot Hadrian, holding one of the recruits around the neck with a gun pointed at his head. He’s bleeding profusely from his thigh. His face is pale.
“Let him go, Hadrian.”
I spot Riggs inching closer, his hands empty of a weapon.
“Shut the fuck up. He’s a thief.”
“What did he do?”
Hadrian is high. I can smell the chaos on him from my hiding spot. White powder covers his nose and upper lip. I don’t know the man with fear in his eyes, but he’s too young.
“He stole my fucking drugs!”
I see the rage and disgust in Riggs’s eyes as he inches closer to his brother. In that moment, I see the resemblance. The hard jaw. The forehead.
Riggs pauses. “Hadrian, let him go.” The calmness in tone belies the tension I can detect in his shoulders. He talks to his brother like one would a child, trying to soothe an explosive temper.
“Stop questioning me, Reg! This is my fucking club. He gave it to me, not you!”
The statement must burn Riggs to his core. He’s still confused as to why his father, the man he trusted more than anyone, would leave his club to this maniac. But his father was murdered by the Mestizos before Riggs could ask him.
The recruit’s voice interrupts the tense exchange between brothers. “I didn’t steal it! You told me I could use some! You?—”
The shot rings out, and the young man’s body drops, his solid weight hitting the floor with a thud. Hadrian rubs his nose, removing the white residue of cocaine on his nostrils. He sucks in a breath and stretches. When he refocuses, he kicks at the dead body and laughs before sitting back down and pouring more vodka into his glass.
“Cade! Get the fuck in here and remove this piece of shit!”
Cade moves like a shadow emerging from the dark recesses of the club. His eyes meet mine, and I communicate what I can. That Hadrian is unhinged, and that he may have to be on high alert.
He motions to another member, and together they drag the dead body to the back, where they will bury him. Another fucking life wasted.
Chapter 28
“How many pieces were you thinking?”
Holding in my excitement. I smile, laughing as Jacinda’ Cinda’ leans in, her leg on the rung of the stool. One of three pieces of furniture in my place. She sips her beer and raises a turquoise colored eyebrow. It matches her double French braided hair. The teal blue color looks so fucking gorgeous against her mocha colored skin. Everything about her is interesting. From her colorful makeup to her cool, futuristic-style clothing.
Her twin brother Julian is also an artist, and I’m hoping I can convince him to put on a show with his sister. My first art exhibition as a studio owner.
It was Kamilah, Jacqueline’s cousin, who introduced her to me. They are in the same kickboxing class. From what Kamilah showed me on Cinda’s social media, she is incredibly talented. Her installation sculptures are unlike anything I’ve ever seen. Using repurposed wood and other organic materials to create huge pieces. I’m itching to showcase some of it. Besides craving her artistic talents and wanting to showcase her incredible work, she and Julian have also become friends. Not friends like Dru,Meela, Lara, Eleanor, and Sophia, but friends that I gravitated towards because they felt like kindred spirits. Their mother is not very supportive of their art either, wanting them to follow in her footsteps and do something financially stable. I could write a book on those feelings of disappointing your family, but wanting to do something for yourself. Something you loved.
“How many can you make?” I ask suddenly, wanting to solidify her commitment.
Jacinda smiles at flipping one long braid over her shoulder. “I have 10 pieces ready to go, but I guess by the end of the year I could do another five.”
Laughing, I climb off my own stool and hug her. “Are you really saying yes!?”
“Fuck yeah, I’m saying yes. The big art galleries won’t take a chance on me and while this place is fucking dump, I can see the potential.”
Laughing harder at her honesty, I think about my downstairs gallery. Yeah. It’s a dump right now, but I like that I’m starting from scratch. Do I have the money to make it fancy as shit? Yeah, but I don’t want that. I don’t want soulless and expensive. I don’t want boring white walls. I want something interesting and gritty.
My work is wild and unhinged, too, and I want to celebrate real people, real artists who are doing incredible things, but because they don’t have connections, their work isn’t being highlighted. Jacinda and her twin brother are two artists just like that. Incredibly talented, but without the exposure they need to really have their art recognized.
Tonight I invited her and Julian over after we ended up in the same free art class. They are my first official guests. We sat on drop cloths and talked about art and our dreams for our own artistic endeavors. We laughed at some of the more ridiculous art installations we’d seen in some of the more trendy galleries.Then we headed upstairs to my apartment, where we ordered wine and pizza and sat in the middle of my empty living room, surrounded by half-painted walls. We didn’t use fancy table manners. Dinner etiquette was out the window as we ate from the box, used paper towels as napkins, and shared the wine and backwash to go with it. I thought Jace was the only black sheep of the family, but it seems like my father’s whole flock is rebelling, and it feels good.
A lot feels great. My niece is on her way with Sophia, due to arrive any day now. Dru is home with baby Bruce. Meela is enjoying being engaged to Tate. Lara is away on her internship. King’s business is going well. I’m happy for them all. I do a little jig, happier than I have been in a long time. I may not be using my hands to draw blood and perform complicated surgeries like my father wanted, but I am using them to heal, healing me. All the years of loneliness and isolation from my family, all the times I was in boarding school with only Kingsley as a friend, all the targeted harassment of being called Icepick Park because I hid my feelings and never let the world see me sweat. Perfect hair, perfect shoes, perfect reactions to the shit going on around me feel far away. Now, I dress how I want. I’m living a messy, chaotic life. It feels good to step outside the rules and restrictions I’ve always lived by.
“Why is there a bearded dragon in your bathroom?”
